


One Spring Day

by TheZpart



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Character Study, Coming Out, Demisexual Gansey, Demisexuality, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Post-Book(s), the romance is in the background really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 02:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10676058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheZpart/pseuds/TheZpart
Summary: Gansey never thought about his sexuality much, and when he fell in love with Blue, he figured he was straight and moved right on. But that all changes one Spring day...





	One Spring Day

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy!

Richard Campbell Gansey the Third had grown up with the assumption that he was going to meet a nice girl from a good family, fall in love, and get married. His parents were leaders in the Republican party, but they did not want to appear hateful, so Gansey was not raised to fear or despise gay people. He was raised without any knowledge of them at all. 

The first time Gansey learned that it was possible for people to not be straight, he was ten. Helen was sixteen, and she spent the better part of two months screaming at their parents and crying on the phone. Her best friend had come out as a lesbian, and her parents had summarily pulled her out of school and placed her in an ex-gay program, and when that failed to produce the desired result, disowned her all together. Helen could not understand how the people she spent her summer vacations with could be so cruel, and she could not understand why her own parents refused to help. In all the anger and sadness, though, she took the time to sit down with her baby brother and explain the existence of homosexuality to him, although she didn’t mention anything other than gay men and lesbians. To tell the truth, she didn’t yet know there was anything else, either. 

Soon after, Gansey had his fateful run-in with a nest of wasps and became consumed with the search for Glendower, and there was no time for matters of sexuality. The few times he thought about homosexuality in relation to himself (for instance, after he saw photographs of Mallory’s partner) he dismissed it. The idea of dating a boy seemed, not distasteful exactly, but highly theoretical. It was not something that he could imagine happening in his real life. Then again, dating a girl felt fairly theoretical, too. He made a few stabs at it, mostly because he felt like he should, but they were never serious. There were more important things to worry about. 

Then he met Blue, and there was nothing more important. It was not love at first sight between them--she accused him of accusing her of prostitution, and then she was Adam’s girlfriend, and he did not allow himself to think of her that way--but it was love nonetheless. Gansey had never felt the way he did about Blue for any other person, and since Blue was a girl, he decided that meant he was straight. He didn’t question that perception for more than a year. 

One day, he, Ronan, and Adam went to a Pride event hosted by Adam’s university. It had actually been Gansey’s idea to go--he wanted to be a supportive friend--but the other two didn’t take much convincing. Adam had a number of friends who were part of the planning committee, and Ronan took any chance he could get to be loud about himself. 

What struck Gansey as he stepped onto the college lawn was all the flags. He’d had no idea there were so many. Rainbow he knew, of course, everyone knew that. The one that looked like printer carriages was for pansexuals--he knew this because Blue had a sticker in those same colors on her laptop (“I’ve been attracted to all kinds of people,” Blue had once told him, “but I don’t usually like them”). The blue, purple, and pink one he knew as well. The first time Adam had used the word “bisexual” around him, he’d smiled and nodded and then gone home and spent the evening on Wikipedia. But the rest were a mystery.

He asked Adam to explain them for him, because Adam was in college and therefore knew about these kinds of things. Adam was not entirely sure he wanted this responsibility, but Gansey looked so worried that he relented. The blue, pink, and white one, he told him, was for transgender people. This was a concept Gansey was familiar with, though he had not known there was a flag for it. The pink gradient for lesbian was pretty intuitive, and though the green, white, and purple flag for genderqueer was foreign to him, he accepted it nonetheless. When he asked about one flag that was all different shades of brown and black, Ronan snorted with laughter, and was soon doubled over as Adam tried to explain the concept of bears (and otters and twinks) to Gansey with delicacy. 

Then, they came to a fairly small table, flying several flags in purple, grey, white, and black. “What does that one mean?” Gansey asked.

Adam, who was beginning to reach the edge of his knowledge, explained the concept as best he could. “It’s when you don’t feel any sexual attraction at all. It’s, like, a spectrum though. I don’t know that much about it.” He saw the way Gansey’s forehead had furrowed and added, “You should take one of their pamphlets.”

Gansey did. There were more sexualities--or lack of sexualities, as the case may be--on the pamphlet than he’d known existed, and he hadn’t heard of a single one. He read as he walked, completely engrossed. Then, he froze. 

It took Adam and Ronan a moment to realize he wasn’t with them. “Gansey?” said Adam, turning back, at the same time as Ronan said, “What the hell are you doing?”

Gansey looked up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just--it’s interesting.”

Ronan turned to Adam, grinning. “I think you owe me five dollars.”

“Not yet,” said Adam. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“What are you two talking about?” said Gansey.

“I bet him that you weren’t straight,” said Ronan. “And I won.”

“I am straight. Only--” 

“Which one is it?” asked Ronan. “Because I get another ten if--”

“This one here,” Gansey said, turning the paper around so they could see. 

Adam tilted his head. “Demisexual. I guess that makes sense.”

“I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t have much data to go on.”

“It’s true,” said Adam. “If it made you freeze like that, it’s definately true.”

“Well, okay.” Gansey could feel himself beginning to overanalyze, so he tucked the paper in his back pocket, and kept walking. Later, he would read the definition to Blue (“Demisexuality is a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond,”) and she would laugh and say “That’s obviously you!” Later, he’d look up support groups online, and realize that the way he’d felt about sexuality was not how most people saw it, but was how aces mostly did. Later, he’d be all about self-discovery and learning. For now, though, it was a sunny spring day and he was with two of his best friends, and he was just a little more whole.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, Gansey and Blue's sexualities are just my personal headcanon. I hope you've found this fun anyway!


End file.
